When installed, users can click a single button to resolve a blocked domain via foreign DNS servers, bypassing all domestic DNS blockades and allowing the user to browse the site though the bare IP-address (if supported).

“I feel that the general public is not aware of the gravity of SOPA and Congress seems like they are about to cater to the special interests involved, to the detriment of Internet, for which I and many others live and breathe,” DeSopa developer T Rizk told TorrentFreak.

“It could be that a few members of congress are just not tech savvy and don’t understand that it is technically not going to work, at all. So here’s some proof that I hope will help them err on the side of reason and vote SOPA down,” he adds.

Indeed, having several workarounds in place long before the bill is signed into law doesn’t promise much good for SOPA’s effectiveness.

If browsing a site through a single IP address is not supported, this other anti-SOPA plugin provides an alternative.

Quote:EA, Nintendo and Sony back off of SOPA support
by Cabalo
Published on 12-31-2011 02:51 AM

Nintendo and Sony rethink unpopular SOPA bill

A quiet update to the list of Stop Online Piract Act supporters (PDF) has shown that Nintendo and Sony have backed away from the proposed bill. Both were originally endorsing the bill as of November but quietly removed themselves from the list sometime in the past month. Neither has acknowledged the change in attitude.

Game developer EA has also dropped its SOPA support.

All three have an interest in curbing piracy of their games. They may have withdrawn support after seeing the full consequences of the bill, which could see site taken down or blocked if even just a small portion of its content was deemed illegal. As drafted, it would also compromise Internet security by taking apart the DNSSEC initiative the US government has wanted to prevent domain name poisoning attacks.

They may have also reacted to public perception. Much of their more technically aware audience opposes SOPA and was key to GoDaddy reversing its position to stem mass defections.

As citizens of the United States worry over the implications of the pending SOPA legislation, a small land-locked country on the fringes of Europe is showing how bad things can really get. Labeled by the United States as an “outpost of tyranny”, Belarus is certainly living up to its reputation. This Friday, browsing foreign websites will become an offense punishable by fines, with service providers taking responsibility for the actions of their users.

While there are many reasons why people oppose the implementation of SOPA, a common thread is that any level of censorship will simply encourage yet more. The fear is that an inch will become a mile, and before long the Internet will be a place of restrictions where innovation is stifled.

Those pointing to China as an example of how bad things can get should now focus a little closer to the west, on the outskirts of Europe to be precise.

From January 6th, Belarus, which became independent in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, will begin severely restricting what its citizens can do on the Internet. New legislation requires that anyone doing business in the country may only utilize fully local Internet domains when carrying out their activities online.

As highlighted by the Law Library of Congress, this means that it will become illegal for locals to use a site such as Amazon.com, which has no official Belarusian presence. Indeed, browsing any website outside the country will be punishable with fines of up to $125.

The initial decree, issued in February 2010 by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, requires the compulsory registration of all web sites which must then be hosted in the country.

The potential damage to the Belarus economy and their growth from online trade will be significant. According to Alexa, some of the world’s biggest sites are listed in the country’s Top 20 most-visited list including Google, YouTube, Twitter and Wikipedia, all of which have .com domains and US hosting. Indeed, only two sites in the Belarusian Top 10 currently appear to be ‘legal’ for local access.

Additionally, the legislation will also hold Internet providers, such as cafés providing wifi, responsible for the actions of their customers if they are found to be using foreign sites. The same responsibilities lie with home Internet subscribers who share their connections with others.

The suggestion is that such providers, commercial or domestic, will have to monitor for foreign website use and report the findings to authorities. The legislation also ensures there is plenty of data to hand over. As a minimum, ISPs and webhosts will be required to record the names and passport details of customers, along with their domain names, a description of their site’s activities and IP addresses allocated.

So for now, even Google’s Belarusian variant Google.by seems to fall outside the legal reach of citizens of Belarus, hosted as it is in the United States. Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia have further problems, since the .BY variants of their domains have been registered by other entities.

Interestingly, while Belarus National State Television has previously aired pirated movies such as The Hurt Locker, they won’t now be able to grab them from foreign torrent sites as they did in the past. RUTracker, one of Russia’s largest torrent sites, is Belarus’ 20th most-popular site. However, it too has a non .BY domain and is hosted abroad, rendering it off limits to locals.

Torrents.by will be doing lots of business soon though – hosted and registered in Belarus.

A new law in Belarus will restrict access to foreign websites and force internet clubs and cafes to report users visiting sites registered abroad.

The opposition Charter 97 website was disabled by hackers last month

The law, which takes effect on Friday, says anyone selling goods or services to Belarus citizens on the web must use the .by Belarusian domain name.

That would make it illegal for firms like Amazon or eBay to sell goods to customers in Belarus.

Fines for breaking the law range as high as 1m Belarus rubles (£77; $120).

The law says people offering internet services to the public - whether at a cafe, club or in their own home - will face fines if their customers visit foreign websites and such visits are not properly recorded and reported.

Anyone found accessing "extremist" or "pornographic" websites will also be fined, the law says.

President Alexander Lukashenko has been in power in the ex-Soviet republic since 1994.

His muzzling of the opposition has been condemned by the EU and US, who have imposed travel bans and asset freezes on him and dozens of his associates.

At the end of December the Belarus opposition website Charter 97, run from outside Belarus, was disabled by a cyber attack.

The site's chief editor Natalya Radzina told the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists that the attackers had deleted archives and posted a false news story about opposition presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov.

Last May Mr Sannikov, co-founder of Charter 97, was jailed for five years for organising mass protests during the December 2010 presidential election.

Ms Radzina, who works in exile in neighbouring Lithuania, said the hackers got into the website by using a password, probably by sending malware to an editor's computer.

In December 2010 the authorities cracked down on protests against alleged vote-rigging in the presidential election.

More than 600 people were detained, including seven of the election candidates.

International monitors said the contest, in which Mr Lukashenko officially won 80% of the vote, was deeply flawed.